We'll Carry Our Scars Along
by KateToast
Summary: Four places Katniss witnesses Peeta have a trackerjacker flashback, and one place she doesn't.
1. The Kitchen

_"Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over." - Mockingjay, pg. 388 _

**XXX**

_The Kitchen_

He's making dinner. I hear him downstairs bustling around, turning the random assortment of goods he came to the house with into some sort of meal for us. I didn't ask him to – I never do. He just does it. I think it makes him feel better about things.

We're finding our way back to ourselves, and each other. It's slow, and some days I can hardly look at him for all of the excruciating memories that surface. I know it can be the same for him. But usually he's exactly what – who – I need to survive the days and, more importantly, the horrific, haunting dreams at night.

It isn't anything more than that, at least right now. I'll admit there are times when we're curled together in the dark, safely hidden under the blankets, and I wonder what his hands would feel like on my skin, not to comfort, but to explore. I'm forgetting what his lips felt like on mine, and it bothers me, because I thought I knew them so well, even despite the charade. But I can't ask for a reminder, not when we're both still in so many jagged pieces.

Thoughts like these don't make sense to me, because I've never before had the luxury of time to consider them. These days I cling to things that make sense, so instead I think of him down in the kitchen, and then I notice how quiet it's gotten.

A clatter and a smash send me hurtling down the stairs. The scene that meets me in the doorway is one I haven't seen in so long: he stands rigid by the table, gripping the back of one of the chairs, the wood splintering in his clutch. His pupils are dilated, and the surrounding blue of his eyes looks electrified. His skin has paled, making his burn scars even more pronounced. Sweat is forming at his temples, his forehead, his neck.

This is a flashback – a hijacking of his mind. I haven't seen one since back when we were making our deadly trip through the Capitol, and then I had trained and armed soldiers in my company in case things got out of hand, and metal around his wrists to restrain. Here, there is nothing separating us except a table and a few yards of space.

We stare at each other for what is probably seconds but feels like hours. His breath is uneven and I think mine is, too. I remember the way his hands squeezed around my throat in the District 13 hospital and decide to keep my distance, which isn't difficult – I'm frozen.

I don't know what to do, so I plead: "Peeta."

My voice sends him into a fit. He howls and his hands fly over his ears as he crouches, head down, his shoes crunching broken glass that was once a bowl. He sounds like a dying animal, like Cato being ripped apart by the mutts, and I have to work to hold back my own flashbacks.

"Go!" he yells, throwing his hands onto the glittering floor for balance, glass puncturing his palms. He lifts his head, expression wild. His eyes dart around, unable to settle on me. "You're a monster – you're a – Go!"

The second command sends me out the front door. I leave him, my boy with the bread, curled on my kitchen floor, bloody hands scrambling over his face. I'm scared, too scared to be brave and try to help him, because seeing him battle his demons only brings out my own.

I don't stop until I'm in Haymitch's living room, where the older man is half-asleep in a chair, knife resting on his thigh. He takes in my disheveled appearance, the tears leaking from my eyes that I didn't even know started.

"Help him," I choke out. "Peeta – in my kitchen –"

Haymitch is up and far more alert than would be expected. He doesn't say anything as he rushes past me and out the door I banged open. He's taken his knife along.

I curl up on the chair he vacated and wait. I'm not sure how much time passes. Eventually my mentor returns, shirt splotched with blood. He cracks open a fresh bottle of liquor and takes a very, very long swig before he even acknowledges me.

"He's all right. I cleaned him up and put him to bed. Sae's gonna watch him overnight."

"Thank you," I say, voice cracking.

We sit for a while in silence, and then I leave. Someone's cleaned up the mess in the kitchen. The broken chair is gone. Other than that, it looks like nothing's changed in the room. When I go to sleep I dream of blood-soaked bread.

**XXX**


	2. The Bakery

**XXX**

_The Bakery_

He's working on the brick oven. The second brick oven – the first is fired up and emitting delicious smells of cinnamon and vanilla. I hear him in the back, arranging the red bricks he had specially delivered, while I wipe down the counter in the front. We found an old fan in a junk pile at the start of the summer, and I stand in front of it, cool air blowing over my neck.

He doesn't have set hours yet, the place is too new and there's still a lot of work to be done. He's only open a few days a week, though anyone in the district knows that if they want some bread or baked goods, they can stop him on the street and just ask. That's the kind of boy – man – that he is, his heart so giving, and I love him all the more for it.

I picture him back there, probably sweating through his t-shirt, his blonde hair stuck to his forehead at funny angles as he focuses on his task. _My husband_, I think, letting the word bounce around my head. "My husband," I try on my tongue as I clean the display glass. "My husband is in the back," I say to no one quietly, matter-of-factly.

We did the toasting, just the two of us by the fire in my house, where he had practically moved in already. We'd signed the marriage certificate a few days after. We've been married for almost a month. Some mornings I wake up and wonder how it even happened, where the girl who didn't want marriage went, but then I look at him laying beside me and realize that this is someone I would do anything for. This outcome was inevitable from the moment he and I shook hands on the stage at the Reaping of the 74th Hunger Games – maybe even before that – it just took me a while to figure it out.

I don't know what triggers it – maybe the bricks reminded him of something, or it was the heat of the oven, or some wayward image popped into his head – but suddenly I hear whimpering on the other side of the wall. I throw down the rag I was using as I burst through the swinging door.

I'll never get used to this, no matter how many times I see it happen. He's hunched over the half-built red structure, breathing hard. The muscles in his back are impossibly tensed, and his shirt clings to his skin with moisture. I've learned what the different kinds of attacks will probably be like, depending on his noises and his posture. This one is going to be quiet, but painful.

I approach slowly. I'm not as wary of him, not like I was during those first flashbacks I was witness to, when he would beg and demand between insults that I leave him so he couldn't hurt me. As I grew to realize just how much he meant to me, I found the strength and stubbornness I wasn't sure I still had and began to stay. I don't abandon the people I love, if I can help it, especially the ones still living.

"Peeta," I murmur behind him. My hand hovers over his shoulder as I wait for some sign, one way or another.

He doesn't say anything. I'm close enough now that I see his unfocused eyes are fixed on some distant point. I wonder what he's seeing – he'll tell me later, if he can. I finally let my hand rest on his tight shoulder. He flinches but otherwise doesn't react, fingers tightening around the brick he'd been about to place on the structure. He makes a few noises, somewhere between panting and crying. Sometimes I'd rather he have flashbacks that involve throwing things and screaming at me – the ones he experiences all by himself in his head are the hardest for me to endure.

I move so I'm beside him, my body facing his hunched side. His lips are moving and every so often he gives his head a small shake. "Peeta," I say again. "Please come back to me."

He turns to me, his blue eyes fighting to focus. The brick is actually crumbling a bit in his clutch. "I—" he tries.

"Please," I beg softly. One of my hands moves to his upper arm, the other to cup his warm cheek.

"Katniss," he chokes.

"It's me. I'm here."

He leans against the wall of brick he's been working so hard on. He places his larger hand over mine on his cheek. "Don't leave," he says, his eyes closing.

"I won't," I promise. "I'll never."

It seems to be passing, his expression relaxing as seconds go by. We stand there in the bakery kitchen like this, fighting silent memories – I would probably stand there forever if he needed me to, and as I watch him return to himself I think again, _my husband_. The thought makes the ghosts that follow me fade a bit.

We drift closer until my arms are around his neck and his are wound around my middle, our cheeks together as we breathe. He still smells like flour. "Let's go home, Peeta."

"All right," he agrees hoarsely, and as we pull apart he finally drops the brick he's been holding this whole time. I replace it with my hand for the walk home, and though we say nothing, he squeezes reassuringly, and I know that for at least a little while we will be okay again.

**XXX**


	3. Haymitch's House

**XXX**

_Haymitch's House_

He's stumbling down the stairs behind me. We've had to put Haymitch to bed, the older man too drunk to help himself. I waited for them on the front step for an hour, maybe more, annoyed and tired and cold. I can't even look at my husband at this point.

We don't speak until we're in the living room. The smell down here is toxic, and I begin picking up trash and moldy, half-eaten food, needing to move. He slumps into a chair, bleary eyes watching me.

"You're upset," he mumbles.

"Yes, Peeta. I'm upset," I answer stonily, folding a blanket and throwing it over the back of the couch. "I didn't know where the hell you went."

He doesn't say anything, just blinks and breathes. He looks like a lost little boy and all I want to do is cry, but I'm too frustrated for that. I go into the kitchen and wash some days old dirty dishes and compose myself. He doesn't seem to have budged when I enter the living room again.

"I didn't know where to go," he explains, voice scratchy. "I ran into Haymitch… He suggested a drink…"

"I see that."

"You aren't the only one who gets to disappear sometimes, Katniss," he says, and I think of the fight we had a few hours ago. _You aren't the only one who gets to make decisions, Katniss_, he'd said.

He was upset. About a lot of things. I was, too. It always gets a little more difficult for us when snow is on the ground, memories of blood covering a white city center and a little sister taken at too young an age. It isn't as easy for me to have my own time when it's so cold, and though we love each other dearly, we need space sometimes, too. We argue like any other married couple, but he knows me better than anyone, and I him. We each know exactly what to say and how to say it to produce maximum damage.

"I know that," I concede.

"I'm just so—" he attempts, hands in fists. "You never—"

"I never what?" I prod, feeling the stubbornness kick in again. "How many times can we have this same fight, Peeta?"

"How many times can you – can you just dismiss what I have to say?" he counters, leaning forward in the chair, eyes on me. He doesn't often lose his cool, but this is one of those subjects that lays the deepest, for both of us. "Sometimes I feel like you never _listen_ to me, you just do what you want and I have to follow along like I always have—"

"I'm _listening_," I defend, throwing my arms out, palms up. "But you know, you've _always_ known, how I feel about this, and I just can't – I can't hear it from you anymore." Frustration conveniently helps me ignore my selfishness. "I'm tired of talking about it."

He stands unsteadily. How many times have I ever seen him drunk? Only a few, but never in this state, so fed up with me. He's supposed to be the patient, even-keeled one in this relationship. "_God_, Katniss!" he roars, and I step back reflexively. He's getting that look in his eyes, his face pinched, and suddenly I regret goading him when he's already so riled up.

He'd been doing so well. After all of these years the flashbacks were becoming something of an afterthought, a minor twitch or momentary lapse that he could quickly snap out of, sometimes with my help, sometimes on his own. He'd mentioned that earlier, when we were arguing, pointing out that one of the deterrents we'd always used in our discussions about having children was worry over his attacks – now that he'd gotten a handle on them, couldn't we start considering a baby?

It had spiraled from there. He'd stormed out of the house, leaving me shaking and angry, experiencing such unfamiliar feelings towards the person I loved more than anyone or anything. And now I felt something else that I never did with him: fear.

It's like I can see the snap that happens in his mind, the switch that flicks on the episode. "Get out!" he shouts, twisting around and throwing Haymitch's favorite chair. "You mutt! You don't love me!" he continues, smashing a lamp. "You should have gone with _him_! You should have left me! The Capitol _forced_ you! I don't _want_ you! You're a manipulative _animal_!"

He's going to wake Haymitch at this rate, but I don't care. I leave the house with tears in my eyes and walk across the grass to the home I've made with the man yelling obscenities at me. If I had just let him be, if I had let him sleep it off, cool our heads…

I sit back on our front step and keep watch through the windows as he storms around the first floor of Haymitch's house. Eventually he slows down, and I see him sit dazedly on the couch. He falls asleep, and that's when I return to him. The sun is coming up.

I clean the broken lamp, the fractured chair, a few pillows he's ripped up. I pour two glasses of water and bring one up to Haymitch, who is still dead to the world. I hold the other one in my hands as I wait quietly in the living room.

I hand it to him as he comes to. "Katniss?" he asks groggily.

"I'm here," I say.

He starts crying. "I'm so sorry," he whispers, over and over, unable to look at me.

"I know."

"I didn't mean any of it – I don't – you know –"

"I know," I repeat, watching him. When would it finally get easier? (Never.)

"I shouldn't have gotten drunk with Haymitch," he says, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. He puts his head in his hands, further mussing his hair. "I shouldn't have left like that. And then I – I said all of those things to you – those horrible things –"

"It's the Capitol, Peeta. I know that," I say, though more for him or myself I'm not sure.

"I thought I was getting better. I thought it was going away." He finally looks at me. He's gotten a scratch just above a pale eyebrow. "It's been almost ten years."

I don't say anything to that. I've learned that the healing of emotional scars can't be measured in something quantifiable like days, months, or years. I'm exhausted, and I'm sick of fighting, and I'm sick of seeing Prim's face in every young girl who passes by me in a winter coat. We leave Haymitch's house without another word; he slips into our bed, I opt for the couch downstairs.

Before I go he grabs my hand, presses apologizing lips against my palm. "I love you," he says seriously. I know he'll be spending weeks, months trying to make this up to me. The issue about children will be dropped again for a long time.

"I love you too," I say as I shut the bedroom door. He doesn't know how I struggle with the words after, _mutt_ and _animal_ and accusations following me to sleep.

**XXX**


	4. District 4

**XXX**

_District 4_

He's sitting on the bench at the window. He's been there for a while, and the sun is long gone below the dark sea. I wanted to give him some time to himself, but I'm tired from the day, and my skin is an angry red in places, unused to the intense sun that beats down onto the District 4 beaches, somehow different from the way it falls in District 12. And I'm worried about him – I'm always worried about him, and always will be, because I know better than anyone the horrors he's seen in his life. A lot of them are my horrors, too.

"Hi," I greet quietly, coming up behind him. He's changed his clothes – he's in a white short-sleeve button-up and khaki shorts. I spied his earlier clothing, dotted in blood, tossed into a corner of the room. I wait for him to indicate how this is going to go.

"Hi," he returns, a whisper almost lost on the crisp breeze. He doesn't turn around to look at me.

I place my hand on the back of his neck, his too-long blonde hair brushing against my fingers. I can feel his guilt through my palm. I slide my thumb up and down in a soothing gesture. "You okay?"

He shrugs. I asked out of reflex – of course he isn't okay. He's never okay after a flashback, this one especially. He'd scared Finn half to death, sending the young teen running for Annie like he was a terrified toddler again. The boy had never seen one of his Uncle Peeta's episodes, and I didn't blame him for seeking his mother, aqua eyes wide and unsettled. I still wrestle with staying put when my husband is seized by his shiny, altered memories, especially the ones that have him screaming and destructive. I can do nothing but wait, my least favorite form of action.

"How's Finn?"

"He's – he's all right," I say, hand moving to his shoulder.

He looks up at me, fringe falling across his forehead. I want to smooth his scrunched eyebrows, kiss his skinned chin, remind him what's _real_. "I don't know why it happened," he says.

I do. Finn looks just like his late father, and named for him, too. District 4 has a lot in common with the arena of the Quarter Quell. And he's stressed – we're both stressed. Among other things, we've been trying to conceive for a year now, with no results. I can't say if I'm more worried about the lack of outcome, or if I'm more worried that it may actually happen one day.

I point out all of these things to him (except for the last part) in a soft murmur while he looks back into the night. "You can't control it."

His fisted hands tighten. "I should be able to." He doesn't sound angry, not like he used to. Now he just sounds defeated. I don't know which is worse.

I sit on the bench, our bare legs brushing. In profile, I notice a few crinkles at the corner of his eye, the way his scars have faded into his light skin, barely noticeable. Has it been almost fifteen years since we huddled together in a dank cave, teetering in some space between enemies and allies? Has it been almost that long since his hands wrapped around my throat? Sometimes I look at him from across a room and wonder, _how did we make it here?_

"Finn helped that little girl with her sand castle."

He frowns at me, shaking his head. "What?"

"Finn helped that girl with her sand castle on the beach today, after her brother ran over it. She was crying, and Finn went over to help her fix it."

His eyes grow with understanding. It's our game, the one we've started to play almost every night before bed, the one that's replaced _Real or Not Real? _Usually we're playing it for my benefit – but he needs it more than I do tonight.

"Your mother," he begins slowly, looking at his rough hands. "Your mother stopped by the neighbor's to check on him this morning, because he'd fallen last week. She wanted to see how he was doing."

My fingers dance over to his on the bench, and I grip tightly. We watch each other the way we always do, with love and concern and the ever-present knowledge that we are tied together through experience and circumstance and need. "You brought me breakfast in bed," I say.

That makes him smirk, and the expression hurts my heart with relief. "I brought you an orange from the kitchen at 4 a.m. because you poked me and asked if _I_ wanted an orange, which meant _you_ wanted one but wanted me to get it."

"You did it, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," he says. "When have I ever denied my wife a request?"

"You never let me have just cheese buns for dinner."

"That's for basic nutritional reasons," he counters, mood continuing to lighten.

"Good things," I say, squeezing his hands. "Good things happened today. They _could_ happen today. Because of us, Peeta. Because of everything we did."

"That's what helped me today," he admits quietly, eyes back out on the darkness for a moment before coming back to me. "I tried to fight through the shiny, horrible things and remember the real, good things. Luckily, I have a lot of good things," he adds.

"We're very lucky," I agree. Of the two of us I'm generally not the optimistic, glass-half-full type, but if that's who he needs me to be, I'll be it.

We sit on the bench for a while longer, no words shared, the bedroom filled with the sound of the calm waves. We take turns looking out the window trying to discern shapes, and looking at each other trying to discern where to go from here.

A chill makes me shiver and then he's pulling me as close as possible against his chest, my face in his neck. His white shirt is soft against my skin and I close my eyes. He's okay. We're okay.

"Let's go to bed," he says, kissing my forehead as he pulls back. I nod; the noises in the house quieted a while ago, when Annie and Finn retired to their rooms.

Later, tucked under the huge, old quilt Annie had said her grandmother made, he cries. I kiss his wet cheeks as the tears subside and murmur nonsense against his ear. "I don't know what I'd do without you," he mumbles, eyes closed, exhaustion setting in.

"I love you," I say, the only possible response.

The next morning he brings me actual breakfast in bed, cheese buns included.

**XXX**


	5. Epilogue: The Nursery

_A/N: Thank you to everyone for reading and reviewing!_

**XXX**

_Epilogue: The Nursery_

He's sitting in the rocking chair. It's so new it hardly creaks as he moves back and forth, and the ornate carvings in the mahogany wood are still polished and fresh looking. It's nicer than any chair we would have put in the spot, but the handmade gift from Gale and Johanna had arrived on our doorstep without notice, and it really is quite comfortable.

I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders and admire the quiet moment from the doorway. The chair is by the window that faces the yard behind the house, where the sun comes in as it climbs over trees and mountains. There used to be an easel there, paint things scattered around as he spent free mornings trying and trying to capture sunrises when he needed a break from sunsets.

He's opened the window to the early spring morning, and the wind that comes in ruffles his hair. He looks more relaxed than I've seen him in months, and from this angle I can see his soft smile. It's a new smile, a new expression – I thought I'd known all of my husband's looks, but I'd never seen this one, because this one is reserved for our baby.

He doesn't take his eyes away from her tiny, chubby face, even when I'm close enough to rest a hand on his shoulder from behind the chair. "How is she?"

"Amazing," he says reverently, like he can't believe she's real. Almost a week since her birth and sometimes I have trouble believing it, too. We spent so many years fighting over this, worrying, making compromises. I'd all but given up on the notion after trying for a year, and I could see his resolve crumbling, too, and we'd console ourselves with the thought that _it just isn't meant to be_. But then, _then_, at the end of our ropes, we'd learned she was coming.

Her blue eyes, her father's blue eyes, blink sleepily at us, like maybe she knows exactly who we are already and what we did for her and all the other children in the world, and she knows she's safe. And even if it isn't that right now, I hope one day she feels that way.

"Look how much hair she has already," he murmurs, brushing a thumb through her impossibly soft, short dark hair. "She'll be wearing it in a braid in no time."

I shake my head ruefully but don't take my gaze from her. I feel like I want to say something, but I can't – I just want to keep staring at my baby. She's already getting bigger, just a tiny bit that no one would notice except for us, and she's already started watching the goings-on of the world with a curious expression. All I want to do is hold her close to my breast, small and perfect, and protect her from every harm and hurt that waits in her future.

"Do you want to sleep? I can take her," I offer.

He keeps rocking gently, and my hand resting on his shoulder moves with him. "All I want to do is look at her," he admits, echoing my thoughts. "She makes me feel… at peace." He shifts his head up and back so that we're face to face. "Do you understand, Katniss?"

I always told him my anxieties during the pregnancy, my endless, core-gnawing concerns over motherhood and safety and explaining the past. But I never told him how I worried about his flashbacks, the horrible visions I had of him seized by an episode with our child in his arms, the terrible images of him out of control, our child scared and confused. He brought it up from time to time, but I saw how it pained him to even consider.

Watching him now in the rocking chair with our week-old daughter, however, I know deep inside me, in a place I can't access or alter at will, that these bad things we've thought won't happen. He won't let them; he'll fight as hard as he can to be present and calm and keep straight what's _real_, in the same way I'll fight off my nightmares and my lingering grief, and our daughter will be the greatest antidote to what ails us.

"I do," I tell him, placing a palm to his cheek.

He smiles at me, this time the one that only _I_ get, the one I've gotten since we were sixteen, and could never tire of seeing. It's the smile that makes me miss him even though he's right in front of me, the one I conjure when we're apart.

"She still needs a name," I say, and we both look at her again. We decided early and easily that we didn't want to name her for anyone we'd lost, saddling her with a strange ghost.

"We'll think of one," he assures me. "We have time."

**XXX**


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